The Survivor Cocktail: Heartbreaks and Blindsides
If you weren't expecting heartstrings to pull in Survivor 46, watch out for "Episode Several"
Survivor 46 episode 7 brings back an epic level of feelings (and what might have been), especially as its title calls back to Jelinsky. “Episode Several” gets players into the immunity challenge early, and although this is a classic Survivor challenge, the remainder of the episode pulls at heartstrings and strategic minds. If you were hoping for a straight-forward vote in tonight’s episode, lean back, grab a tissue, and get ready for some blindsides.
The Calm Before the Voting Storm
Yes, there was an immunity challenge where the remaining 12 players were divided into 2 groups. All players were placed onto balancing stations on fairly calm Fijian waters and the last person standing from each group won immunity. Despite two players winning immunity, each group went to tribal council separately and then one member from each group would be voted out.
The unfortunate consequence of the first group losing all of its members first in the challenge means that the first person voted out tonight does not make the jury. How incredibly sad, right? The first group going to tribal council included Kenzie (immunity winner), Tiffany, Q, Hunter, Tim, and Ben. All of these players seem likeable in some way and it doesn’t seem like an easy answer on who goes home.
The Humanity We See Is Sometimes the Humanity We Need
Early in the episode, we see Ben awake from sleep in an erratic state. He’s talking about being cold, possibly waking up from a bad dream, and it immediately threw me for a loop. As a parent of a child who has had night terrors, this scene was hard to watch and brought back bad memories of my own kid suffering in that kind of moment.
Ben described this moment as anxiety as he dealt with it, but Kenzie’s response really propelled my appreciation for the moments we don’t always see on Survivor. She held Ben’s hand as he tried to find time to center himself from his troubled sleep. Kenzie addressed it in confessional and how being there for him is a human moment – and perhaps that’s something we don’t always see in our day-to-day lives, but at least we want to.
Plus, would that bond amplify each other’s place in the game? Yes, that was one moment at night and it doesn’t have to go further in the game of Survivor 46, but perhaps it matters when it comes time to vote. In this case, both players find themselves on the tribe where the first person voted off does not make it to the jury.
Will Survivor 46 Episode 7 Determine How the Winner Is Viewed?
Let’s be clear: Venus is playing very hard. From what’s being seen on the TV screen, she seems to be directing more than negotiating. Similar to Q’s game where he seems to be telling what the plan is rather than asking, the major difference here is that Venus does not seem to have the social graces that Tiffany and Kenzie have with Q in their Yanu trio.
Although Venus doesn’t have a similar bond with other players (at least from what we’ve seen), it doesn’t mean she does not get her way and stays present in Survivor 46. The other tribe going to tribal council includes her, Charlie, Soda, Tevin, Liz, and Maria (immunity winner). Despite wanting to vote out Charlie last week, and that being the supposed vote out this week, she doesn’t want that either.
Venus wants to swing the vote to either Tevin or Soda, but Tevin seems to have already put in place an alternate plan for Soda. In this episode, it appears everyone views Venus as a player who they know how she’s playing, which seems to indicate she’s not a threat as a potential winner. Perhaps that’s an early case of a bad edit read, but it does not seem like she is one person in particular who is getting the winning title of Survivor 46.
Who Goes Home & Does It Matter
The first tribal council highlights Ben’s emotional response to feeling a human bond with Kenzie as she took care of him in the middle of the night. It’s an important moment and one I’m glad made the final cut. Survivor is (or can be) a very cutthroat game, but moments like this do happen. It also sees Hunter not play his hidden immunity idol. The first two votes were cast for him, but the remaining four votes were for Tim. In heartbreaking fashion, Tim does not make the jury – and that’s a rough boat to sit in.
The second tribal council shows another twisted tale of who players think might go home; otherwise known as a blindside. Soda talked about tribal alliances and how Charlie was on the outs – even though she was voting for Venus – while almost everyone else was voting for her. Despite Tevin coming up with the plan to vote out Soda, he didn’t actually have to write her name down.
Will that come to play later, if he makes it to the finals? It is a little early to tell who might make it to the end, but it seems pretty clear that Tevin orchestrated Soda’s end, even though Venus seemed certain it was her move. Could we not be seeing more of what happened, because we only see the final edited version? Sure, but from what we’ve seen, it seems like Tevin, along with Maria (and subsequently Charlie), were the driving forces in sending Soda home.
What in the world will happen next week? I’m glad I do not have a clue, but that’s what makes Survivor great; discovering what happens along with the rest of the Survivor community. Until the next episode, I’m getting that popcorn ready.